1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of telecommunications and computer network cabling installations. More particularly, the preferred embodiment of the present invention relates to a device employed to identify various types of telecommunication and networking cables communicating from remote areas of an office or other building to a switch room within an office or building. Such identification is provided without the need to strip the distal ends of the wires or cables.
2. Description of the Related Art
Along with the boom of the Internet, the demand for telecommunications and computer networking infrastructure has also increased at a rapid rate. In commercial buildings and office buildings in particular numerous cables are often needed to connect the phone, computer, video, control, intercom, security, and fire alarm system cables from each office to the main systems and/or communications and networking lines entering the building.
A building's phone, computer, video, control, intercom, security, and fire alarm cabling is typically installed in a star topology. A star topology provides for one end of all of the cables to communicate from one location. Generally this location is a room designated as the telephone/computer room or switch room. The other ends of all of the cables communicating forth from the switch room terminate at different remote locations, such as each individual office or room where they engage with sockets adapted to connect phones or computers to the cable. For most cables both ends need to be electrically attached or “terminated” to a connector with type of connector determined by the cable's application. For example, most cables used for telephones and computer networks are terminated with a female modular, RJ type connector adapted to engage a male connector engaged to a computer or telephone. Such RJ connectors conventionally employed for this purpose are registered with the Federal Communications Commission.
During installation a first end of each cable is generally engaged with a socket adapted to engage the cable from a phone or computer to be located in a remote office. Such RJ sockets are conventionally located in walls. From this office termination point the cables are typically all routed to the switch room through conduits or circuitous routes where the distal ends of the many cables generally are left hanging down from the ceiling or wall outlet. The many distal ends of cables, each leading back to a termination point at some specific point in the building, must then be identified, properly labeled, and connected to the appropriate equipment. Current installation techniques require that the cables are terminated or finished in the switch room in some sort of alphanumeric order. Since the remote locations or offices or rooms usually have designated numbers, the room's phone, computer, video, control, intercom, security, and fire alarm cabling are usually identified using indicia which identify each cable's office or room termination to associate it with the specific room and/or portion of a room. In large offices or buildings with many rooms, the switch room can have hundreds if not thousands of individual cable distal ends, each communicating with individual terminating positions in individual rooms of the building.
Identifying each cable is conventionally a daunting and extremely time-consuming task. The conventional process of identifying each cable to allow the switch room distal end to be engaged to a connector or equipment which will communicate with the telephone or computer engaged to it at the terminating position in a room of the building is a painstakingly long and laborious task. The task generally involves two individuals, one at the switch room and one at the remote office, trying to locate the correct cables by the process of trial and error. To locate a cable the person at the remote office generally sends an electronic signal down the cable and the person in the switch room goes through the many cables hanging in the switch room, one by one, to detect the single cable having the signal. Once the signaling cable is located, it is labeled and the person in the remote office engages the signaling device with another cable or socket engaged to a cable. This new engagement of the signaling device sends the electronic signal down another cable and the person in the switch room sorts through the individual cables, one by one, with a signal detector to identify the single cable now carrying the transmitted signal. If hundreds of cables are present, the process of identifying each of the cables individually can take days to complete, as finding the connected cable with the signal is essentially determined by chance. The person in the switch room must use the signal detector on each cable in the switch room that is unidentified until the correct cable is found.
Further complicating the process is a lack of power in buildings and offices while the cables are being located. This is especially true in new construction and remodels of buildings. This prevents cables from being connected and identified by utilization of electricity to complete the circuit between the cables and any type of outlet box having connections for multiple cables. Some inventions have attempted to solve this problem of lack of power by having one person send a sound pulse down the cable at one end and another person use a pulse detection tool to detect the pulse in the cable at the other end. However, this can be a time-consuming process, as hundreds of wires must be individually scanned. Further, when relying on electronically transmitted signals, there exists the possibility of detecting a signal from the wrong cable if sensitive tools are not used. This is because the cables generally run along parallel paths from the remote rooms of the building to the switch room, and adjacent parallel cables can pick up the signal transmitted down an adjoining cable.
Other devices have tried to solve the problem of identifying one cable out of many cables by utilizing boards with rows and columns of cable connectors and lights. However, these devices have not had the capabilities to be used when the office or building does not have power, and they do not provide a rapid means to identify unstripped cables.
Thus, there is a current need for a quick, efficient, and cost-effective way to locate unconnected and unidentified telecommunication or computer networking cables within a location that does not rely on the electrical power within that location and that can accommodate both unstripped cables and cables having been stripped of their insulation.
With respect to the above, before explaining at least one preferred embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangement of the components or steps set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The various apparatus and methods of the invention are capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways which will be obvious to those skilled in the art once they review this disclosure. Also, the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure is based may readily be utilized as a basis for designing of other devices, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present disclosed device. It is important, therefore, that the objects and claims be regarded as including such equivalent construction and methodology insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.